Really.. if you have a problem with low levels on an alert, make a team?

Ask your friends to join and then you are always sure that you have a lvl 20+ team or whatever you accept. I don't have problems with low levels on an alert. I have more difficulty with the smashing around.

Edit: And why another topic about this? Is 1 topic about lowbies and alerts not enough??

Agreed, sometimes those with underperforming skills or builds that can be the cause. Even a bad pull that involves pulling in a certain amount of minions in a recruting drive can be at fault unless the group is proactive enough to get past that. There are many factors that lead to a failure in a alert but to just generalize low levels to be the cause of such such frustration would be a bit much.

But I do agree there needs to be a certain AFK time limit when the alert starts, I would suggest 30 seconds rather than 10 because that is just messed up for those with slower connections. As for level gating I would go with 14 IMO because you can level up to ten somewhat quickly with a few missions into westside.

But 14 requires the whole damn Westside arc, roughly.

I really want skipping Westside to be viable. Wasn't an issue when we still had starting Canada.

That's why I support a sub-14 tier with lesser difficulty and commensurate rewards, but absolutely don't support gating the system off entirely.

Isnt it still possible to get into APs at level 8 ?

I've never had them show up before 11?

My bad. I dont alt much. It used to be possible to get in as early as 8 (some videos posted about it way back when). They probably fixed it.

Here's how I would handle it:

1. You must have a passive power and have it slotted in order to do alerts.

2. You must contribute via active damage or healing skills, not counting your energy builder.

This would mean a minimum of level 8 for ATs or higher if you're a freeform and decided to put off taking a passive until later.

I wonder if the queue system could be adjusted to try and get a better spread of levels to try and avoid the 5 level 6 teams or such (queued players permitting of course).

That gets worse with the way Alerts are made and the way people are.
Here's the typical scenarios.

Team Member 1: Queues alert
Team Member 2: Wait, I need to powerhouse
Team waits.

Team Member 1: Queues alert
Team Member 2: hold on baby's crying
Team waits.

Team Member 1: Queues alert
Team Member 3: Brb, need to pee
Team waits.

Team Member 1: Queues alert
Team Member 4: Sorry was at bank had to cancel that
Team waits.

Team Member 1: Queues alert
Team Member 5: Few more minutes, I'm self publishing my epic vampire romance sci-fi trilogy
in hand lettered Egyptian Hieroglyphic Esperanto, and have a few typos to fix.
Team waits.

2 minute alert should not require any kind of personal entanglements to other players.
It should be quick and dirty casual gaming experience.

I was in a Pyramid Grab today that my level 40 friend wanted to run.
I was level 31 and my other friend was 19. There was a 15 and a 16 in the mission with us.
It took over 15 minutes just to grind down ...whatever villian we were power-spamming.
If my friends weren't there I would have probably left about 5 minutes into it.

I was so bored, Blasting and blasting over and over and over forever because ...three of the
players are doing about 100 to 200 damage per strike against a guy with over two million hit points.

Teams are not the solution to the problem here.

I'm opposed to level gating of alerts, on these grounds: 1) It isn't needed. The claim that low level players cannot complete or meaningfully contribute to alerts has been Busted. It doesn't matter if they were "easy" alerts. The bottom line is that players who knew what they were doing were able to make it happen. 2) It doesn't solve the leeching problem. At all. At best, it only slightly delays it while needlessly inconveniencing legit players. 3) It doesn't solve the other real issue, which is player error and/or inexperience. Doing easy PVE content in Westside does not teach people how to handle tough content like alerts, nor does it help them learn any team tactics.

Of the relatively few alerts I've failed (success rate has been ~85-90% regardless of team composition or player levels), the failure has almost always been due to player error or inexperience. I have yet to run into one single leecher (which honestly surprises me, considering how much of a fuss is being raised on the forums about this -- might have something to do with the times I log in), and I've never failed an alert due to a low level team. The alerts became harder, but they never outright failed because of that alone.

I have, however, failed an alert because 3 high-level players ragequit within the first 30 seconds.

Now, having said all that, instead of level-gating, I would be OK with the idea of tiered alerts. Only 2 tiers: a tier of "beginner alerts" for levels 6-10, and then the normal queues from 11 on. Even that seems like unnecessary tinkering, though. My experience has been that once people have a primary superstat and a passive (as well as a basic understanding of the game), they should be good to go.